Domestic Gardener's Manual. 191 



all, to excite an enquiry after truth. Conceiving that I shall most readily 

 attain my object, by enabling the reader to examine and compare the various 

 opinions and hypotheses advanced by scientific men, I have given, in the 

 first section of each number, concise selections and extracts from the woi'ks 

 of some of the most eminent chemists and philosophers ; to which 1 have 

 occasionally added such remarks as the nature of the subjects, and the re- 

 sult of my own reflection and experience appeared to require and authorise. 

 The work, therefore, may be considered as a compendium, or book of refer- 

 ence, from which the reader may draw his own conclusion on the present 

 state of science, particularly that termed electro-chemical : and on its pro- 

 bable applicability to the practice of horticulture. 



" At a time when knowledge is spreading in every direction, when our 

 operatives and mechanicsgive promise of producing someof our most enlight- 

 ened characters, and when many of the sciences, both physical and mecha- 

 nical, are laid open to their research, can there exist any just cause why such 

 men should not be instructed in the true principles of agriculture and gar- 

 dening ? 



" I am not aware that any cheaj^ publication has hitherto appeared, which 

 pretends to treat of gardening as a science of induction. Believing it to be 

 such, and that to attain any perfection in the j)ractice, it is indispensably 

 necessary to acquire some knowledge of the philosophy of the art, I have 

 felt it a duty to call the reader's attention to the operations of those natural 

 agents by which all the phenomena of vegetation are induced. Peculiar 

 stress has been laid upon the agency of electricity, with the view of excit- 

 ing close investigation into that branch of the philosophy of nature, which 

 appears to have been the most neglected ; althoogh there is little reason to 

 doubt of its containing the germ or embryo^of that true science, which, if it 

 ever fully develope itself, will scarcely fail to make manifest causes and ef- 

 fects which have heretofore been involved in inextricable mystery. 



" The late Professor Playfair once observed, ' If we consider how many 

 different laws seem to regulate the action of impulse, cohesion, elasticity, che- 

 mical affinity, crystallisation, heat, light, magnetism, electricity, galvanism, 

 the existence of a principle more general than these, and connecting all of 

 them with that of gravitation, appears highly probable. The discovery of 

 this great principle may be an honour reserved for a future age ; and science 

 may again have to record names which are to stand on the same labels with 

 those of Newton and Laplace.' He added, ' it were unwise to be sanguine, 

 and unphilosophical to despair.' 



" The conjecture of this great man has, to a certain extent, been veri- 

 fied; and it may not be presumptuous to conjecture, that ' the great prin- 

 ciple ' itself will ultimately be referred to one grand and only source. 



" I believe that this source is already discovered and known, and that it 

 only requires the philosophic mind to divest itself of prejudices, and to cease 

 from pursuing shadows, since the substance itself stands revealed to the 

 view of all. If I succeed in rendering this apparent, I shall enjoy the satis- 

 faction of having done something for the cause of science, by simplifying 

 the means of scientific research into the operations of that grand principle, 

 which I cannot but view as the source of, and prime operative agent in, 

 all the phenomena of the material world." 



From these quotations it will be evident to our readers, that this is a 

 work of considerable pretension. We can hardly judge of its execution 

 from the first number, which, besides the preface, contains only forty pages ; 

 but the book is so exceedingly cheap, and the object of the author so laud- 

 able, that we can hardly go wrong in recommending it to the class of readers 

 to whom it is addressed. When the work is completed, we shall again 

 recur to it, and extract every thing that is not to befound in Mr. John- 

 son's series of papers on Horticultural Chemistry. 



